A Bedford Park Fall Cleanup

Putting the Backyard Pool Garden "to Rest"

A handful of my clients have outdoor pools and I find it's always a bit tricky working around them. It wouldn't be a disaster falling in by accident (I can swim) when it's hot and sticky in August but during a November fall cleanup, exposure to these standing pockets of water is...well, gross, as some pictures below will suggest.

The homeowner of this Bedford Park property in mid-north Toronto hires me in the spring and fall to weed, prune, rake leaves, etc. It's a rental property so the tenants, as usual, do nothing when it comes to maintaining the outside and when I return after a five month hiatus, there's usually a lot of pruning and weeding required.

Bedford Park Fall Cleanup Backyard Before

I usually leave ornamental grasses like this group of Maiden Grass (Miscanthus) alone over winter as they look nice; however, since the client asked me to cut them down and the tenants are oblivious, I reduced them to stubs. I suggest you don't do this for your own garden as these hardy grasses do double duty over winter.

Unless you like the look below...

Bedford Park Fall Cleanup Backyard After 

Bedford Park Toronto Fall Cleanup Backyard Before

This area around the flagstone path connecting the house side and backyard patio is always infested with weeds. Either I deal with them now or next spring so I dug them out before they really take hold.

Bedford Park Toronto Fall Cleanup Backyard After 

Fall Cleanup Bedford Park Backyard Before 

Fall Cleanup Bedford Park Backyard After 

Fall Cleanup Bedford Park Backyard Before 

Standing water enriched by decomposing leaves isn't very attractive as the pictures above and below show. I had to work carefully in that three foot wide bed at the base of the fence. Falling into that cold and dirty water when the air temperature is hovering around zero Celsius (32 F) wasn't part of the fall cleanup!

Fall Cleanup Bedford Park Backyard After 

Toronto Bedford Park Fall Cleanup Backyard Before

Toronto Bedford Park Fall Cleanup Backyard After 

I usually prune the spireas, hydrangeas and peonies "hard" every fall to control their size in this narrow strip of a garden bed.

Toronto Bedford Park Fall Cleanup Backyard Before 

Toronto Bedford Park Fall Cleanup Backyard After 

And a bit of work in the front garden bed and driveway...

Bedford Park Fall Cleanup Front Yard Before

Lots of hostas to take down and, yes, Halloween was the night before I visited this property!

Bedford Park Fall Cleanup Front Yard After 

Fall Cleanup Bedford Park Front Yard Before 

Fall Cleanup Bedford Park Front Yard After 

Fall Cleanup Bedford Park Front Yard Before 

Fall Cleanup Bedford Park Front Yard After 

In case you're wondering, those paper bags in the upper left corner of the picture above hold all the leaves, twigs, etc. I collected and will be picked up by the City every two weeks until December for municipal composting. 

Toronto Bedford Park Fall Cleanup Front Before 

Toronto Bedford Park Fall Cleanup Front After 

More fall cleanups to come, lucky you!

Hasta la Vista, Hostas!

A Fall Cleanup in a Downtown Toronto Courtyard

If you grow hostas in Toronto (and who doesn't, it seems), you knew this day would come. Your clumps of slug bait prized perennials have finally collapsed and on their way to becoming a slimy mess. What to do? Cut them down now or deal with the mess next spring? A perennial question, indeed.

Hostas have their virtues, don't get me wrong: they are practically indestructible in most soils with decent drainage, there are hundreds of varieties in the market and are useful in garden designs as specimens or "filler". I like to consider hostas as "perennials with training wheels" for newbies as they are often found for sale in the same places you'd pick up a can of paint or drywall, forgiving of abuse and relatively inexpensive. I certainly bought more than a few when I first started planting in my current garden decades ago.

So it's no surprise that I see hostas in many of the gardens I work in and, at this time of the year, I've been dealing with them almost daily during my fall cleanup sessions for clients. This post will yet again show hostas "melting" into winter dormancy which kind of describes my physical condition at the end of another work season!

If you like hostas and yews, you're in for a treat (sarcasm inserted). This condo courtyard profiled in this post (and in another post titled "Weeding Raised Beds in a Central Toronto Courtyard: Getting Gritty in Downtown Toronto") has a dozen or so curvilinear raised beds full of hostas and yews. The look of overall garden is firmly stuck in the mid 1980s:

Toronto Garden District 
Fall Cleanup Before

Toronto Garden District 
Fall Cleanup Before

Garden District Courtyard Toronto 
Fall Cleanup Before

Toronto Garden District 
Courtyard Fall Cleanup Before 

Garden District Toronto 
Fall Cleanup Before 

Garden District Toronto 
Fall Cleanup Before 

Toronto Garden District 
Courtyard Fall Cleanup Before 

Garden District Courtyard 
Toronto Fall Cleanup Before 

It's a "mow-blow-go" landscape maintenance contractor's Nirvana (even better,  there's no grass therefore no "mow" so you can "go" even quicker.) The work would simply consist of coming in with a few worker bees and shearing these yew meatballs and UFOs with gas-powered clippers, blowing away debris from the paths and getting back to the truck to check their phones and scoot on to their next job. 

I was confused as to why the condo board would want to hire me to look after the courtyard area, given the monoculture of shorn evergreens and hostas, but apparently the board members wanted to update the plantings circa the late 1900s and are even considering removing some of the more contorted yews and replacing them with a greater variety of deciduous shrubs and perennials. And so they called me for this spring 2019 project.

But between now and warmer times in 5 months, a fall cleanup was booked and completed, as the pictures below show:

Toronto Garden District 
Fall Cleanup After

Toronto Garden District 
Fall Cleanup After

Garden District Courtyard 
Toronto Fall Cleanup After 

Toronto Garden District 
Courtyard Fall Cleanup After

Garden District Toronto 
Fall Cleanup After

No, these are not yews surprisingly. 
A "grove" of Fiveleaf Aralia (Eleutherococcus 
( syn. Acanthopanax) sieboldianus).

Toronto Garden District 
Courtyard Fall Cleanup After 

Garden District Courtyard 
Toronto Fall Cleanup After 

On a positive and hopeful note, someone did plant this small clump of "Goldsturm" coneflower (Rudbeckia fulgida ‘Goldsturm’) below. I left it alone for the winter, an "oasis" for hungry overwintering birds within the barren yew-dominated courtyard.

Garden District Courtyard Fall 
Rudbeckia (Black Eye Susans) 

Autumn at the Toronto Botanical Garden: An Early Look

Fall Flowers at the TBG

A lull before my many (I hope) fall cleanup jobs gave me a chance to visit one of my favourite places in Toronto during my favourite time of the year: the Toronto Botanical Garden in autumn. While it wasn't a classic crisp and sunny fall day when I recently dropped by the TBG (more overcast and humid), I nevertheless happily spent an hour or so taking many pictures of fall blooming perennials hardy to zone 5 Toronto (and a few to-be-discarded annuals). It's still a little early for many of the shrubs and trees to show off their vibrant fall foliage colours so I focused on the autumn bloomers. 

Anemone tomentosa ‘Robustissima’
(Grape Leaf Anemone) at the
Toronto Botanical Garden's
Entry Garden Walk 

Anemone tomentosa ‘Robustissima’
(Grape Leaf Anemone) fall flowers
at the Toronto Botanical Garden's
Garden Hall Courtyard 

Autumn Crocus (Colchicum autumnale)
fall flowers at the Toronto Botanical Garden's
Entry Garden Walk

Autumn Fountain Grass and
New England Asters
at the Toronto Botanical Garden's
Perennial Borders 

Autumn Goldenrods at the
Toronto Botanical Garden's
Perennial Borders 

Autumn New England Asters and
Fountain Grass at Toronto Botanical
Garden's Perennial Border 

Autumn New England Asters and
Goldenrod at the Toronto Botanical
Garden's Woodland Walk 

Autumn New England Asters and
Purple Coneflowers at the Toronto
Botanical Garden's Perennial Borders 

Autumn Purple Coneflowers and
New England Asters at the
Toronto Botanical Garden's
Perennial Borders 

Calico Aster (Symphyotrichum lateriflorum)
at the Toronto Botanical Garden Nature

Colchicum autumnale (Autumn Crocus)
fall flowers at the Toronto Botanical
Garden's Entry Garden Walk 

Dahlia 'Knockout' or 'Mystic Illusion'
flower detail at the
Toronto Botanical Garden 

Grape Leaf Anemone
(Anemone tomentosa ‘Robustissima’)
fall flowers at the
Toronto Botanical Garden's
Garden Hall Courtyard 

Phlomis tuberosa 'Amazone' (Jerusalem Sage)
autumn flowers at the Toronto Botanical
Garden's Entry Garden Walk 

Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea)
seedheads at the Toronto Botanical Garden's
Entry Garden Walk 

Reblooming Bearded Iris 'Immortality'
fall flowers at the Toronto Botanical
Garden's Entry Garden Walk 

Rosa 'AuSome' (Rose-Marie Modern Shrub Rose)
at the Toronto Botanical Garden's
Floral Hall Courtyard 

Rosa 'AuSome' (Rose-Marie Modern Shrub Rose)
bloom at the Toronto Botanical Garden's
Floral Hall Courtyard 

Rudbeckia subtomentosa 'Henry Eilers'
(Sweet Coneflower) and Tall Verbena
at the Toronto Botanical Garden's
Westview Terrace 

Salvia 'Mystic Spires Blue' and
Lantana camara 'Luscious Bananarama'
flowers at the Toronto Botanical Garden 

Toronto Botanical Garden
Nature's Walk Fall Colours 

Toronto Botanical Garden
Perennial Border Fall Colours 

Verbena bonariensis (Tall Verbena)
at the Toronto Botanical Garden's
Entry Garden Walk 

It's Canadian Thanksgiving this weekend and I'm very thankful for being able to visit the Toronto Botanical Garden. And judging by the crowd milling around during this recent visit, I'm not the only one to feel the same!